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A rule I have been thinking about for a while, started off as an idea to improve Imperial Guard and their Lasguns but can be extended to all units to help reduce rolling huge numbers of dice and to boost the effectiveness of regular troop weapons and also makes sense from a logical view point.

Punishing Fusillade:
Any unit firing 10 shots or more of the same gun may use this rule:

Before rolling to hit the player may choose to half the number of shots fired (rounding down) and +1 to the Strength to the remaining half. This may be done as many times as possible until the number of shots is less than 10.

Example: A combined Imperial Guard Squad consisting of 20 guardsmen with Lasguns fires at a unit, the total number of shots coming from this unit is 20. The IG player chooses to use Punishing Fusillade twice so follows this process:
20 shots Strength 3 --Half--> 10 shots Strength 4 --Half--> 5 shots Strength 5 The IG player then rolls 5 shots to hit at Strength 5.

For purposes of being in cover, a model may claim a cover save from a unit using punishing fusillade if it is obscured from at least 1 model contributing to the fusillade.

Is that a dire avenger in your avatar picture?

You don't by chance run a dire avenger shrine, do you?

40 man guardsman squad with Inquisitor that has a psyocullum. Get into rapid fire range of a psyker. Some commander pops FRFSRF. 120 S3 to 60 S4 to 30 S5 to 15 S6 shots, at BS10

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
40 man guardsman squad with Inquisitor that has a psyocullum. Get into rapid fire range of a psyker. Some commander pops FRFSRF. 120 S3 to 60 S4 to 30 S5 to 15 S6 shots, at BS10

Yeah seems fair to me? Otherwise it's 2+ re-rolls for 120 shots, and if the psyker is in cover or out of line of sight of at least one guardsmen then they get cover saves

I'd half it at least once for sure, you could even half it again to 7 Strength 7 shots, forgot to add rounding down too the rule

Whilst I like the idea of reducing the amount of rolls - a 'blob' rapid firing with Front Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire! could easily put out >100 shots which you might need to reroll too - my one concern is that you shouldn't with any 'simplification' gain the ability to hurt a unit that would normally be immune to las-fire.

Lasguns are essentially assault rifles. You can empty the magazines of a company, you're still not going to disable a tank - but if take this progression too far, glancing or even penetrating hits on things like dreadnoughts, chimeras and even predators become a possibility.

I'm not saying it doesn't need playtesting but with the rule as it stands 150 shots could fire 9 strength 7 shots instead

And I disagree lasguns are laser rifles, it makes sense in a science fiction way that the more lasers you fire you could start to damage tanks and vehicles if it is concentrated enough

Strength 7 is the absolute maximum I think you could get out of any unit combination in the game at the moment, and this would only happen if a unit is silly enough to get within 12" of every man in a 50 man blob

I really like the rule, it fits the fluff and I think would work in game!(You can find ways to abuse almost every rule if you realy want to)

locarno24 wrote:
Whilst I like the idea of reducing the amount of rolls - a 'blob' rapid firing with Front Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire! could easily put out >100 shots which you might need to reroll too - my one concern is that you shouldn't with any 'simplification' gain the ability to hurt a unit that would normally be immune to las-fire.

Then you oppose the rule. The only benefit to this proposed rule is hurting things you couldn't previously hurt. It's always mathematically inferior to use this rule against anything you can already damage.

Should also allow the opposite to happen, too!

More shots at lower str! Fire Warriors pls! Broadsides pls!

12 Fire Warriros with Storm of Fire and a Fireblade within half range firing 192 shots at S3 unf unf unf

Hammerhead firing 32 S5 AP1 rounds with its Railgun!

 chrisrawr wrote:
Should also allow the opposite to happen, too!

More shots at lower str! Fire Warriors pls! Broadsides pls!

12 Fire Warriros with Storm of Fire and a Fireblade within half range firing 192 shots at S3 unf unf unf

Hammerhead firing 32 S5 AP1 rounds with its Railgun!

That would go against the intention of the rule listed in the thread title

And it is actually balanced by the way it is now because you can't get so many shots at low AP to be able to use it, the most use you would get out of it is with low ap high shot count

Personally, I like the idea of Punishing Fusilade being a restricted rule for certain troops that are trained/focused in of doing combined fire shenanigans, regardless of unit size. For stuff like Dire Avengers or Fire Warriors, it's a nice idea. For stuff like Ork Mobs (as much as they can stand to be buffed, this is probably not the way for them to go), or even non-Imperial Fist Marines, doesn't feel as right.

Also, how would Punishing Fusilade work for smaller units that fire large numbers of shots? As an example, 10 Scatter Laser Jetbikes could go from 40 S6 shots to 5 S9 shots, for when they need to put the hurt on Land Raiders.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Personally, I like the idea of Punishing Fusilade being a restricted rule for certain troops that are trained/focused in of doing combined fire shenanigans, regardless of unit size. For stuff like Dire Avengers or Fire Warriors, it's a nice idea. For stuff like Ork Mobs (as much as they can stand to be buffed, this is probably not the way for them to go), or even non-Imperial Fist Marines, doesn't feel as right.

Also, how would Punishing Fusilade work for smaller units that fire large numbers of shots? As an example, 10 Scatter Laser Jetbikes could go from 40 S6 shots to 5 S9 shots, for when they need to put the hurt on Land Raiders.

Yeah I have been thinking about scat bikes, but to get 40 shots its a 270pt unit and if the vehicle is in cover from at least one bike it gets a cover save. So its really very ineffective, I can't see anyone choosing to take a squad of 10 ever. With firing 5 strength 5 shots on average will do 1 Hull point and the same average for 10 strength 8 shots

And a thing to remember is that this makes the weapon worse as it is a greater sacrifice to half shots than it is a gain from +1 strength

This rule gives you more tactical choices but choices that have positives and negatives

i like it.

Not bad.

I have thought of something like this in the past, I like it alot.

locarno24 wrote:
Whilst I like the idea of reducing the amount of rolls - a 'blob' rapid firing with Front Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire! could easily put out >100 shots which you might need to reroll too - my one concern is that you shouldn't with any 'simplification' gain the ability to hurt a unit that would normally be immune to las-fire.

This.

Instead of increasing Strength, what about instead using it to increase BS or AP? Reducing the shots down so you get guaranteed AP2 against terminators vs. gobs of shots and hoping to overwhelm their armor seems like good shortcut. Perhaps make it linear - say, cost 5 (or 3?) shots for +1 AP or BS - whatever would mathmatically equate for the reduction in attacks.

Combining shots to take out vehicles with lasguns, ehh not so much.

While I'll agree that its not a bad rule (as written in the first post) I don't think the game needs more rules right now. There are plenty of things that are broken that need fixed and this doesn't address a specific problem, it just adds a cool new option/houserule that has yet to be playtested and adjusted.